


under the willows

by crashkeys



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Secret Relationship, some people are dead. theyre just dead nancy., stargazing? a bit of crying. friendship is important., yeah idk what else is even in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 03:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10982793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crashkeys/pseuds/crashkeys
Summary: i will follow you into the dark, except there's swordfighting.it's an izuleo royalty au





	under the willows

**Author's Note:**

> yeah uhhhhh i dont really know what this is. i also was too embarrassed to proofread the latter half i'm so sorry

He didn't think about dying. Some people do. Most people do.  
Most of his kind, armor and honor-clad, do. It's their destiny and their duty, to die.  
Izumi never thought much about that, because it was The End and what came after The End was of no importance to him, who would be over and done with and consigned to oblivion.  
If there was a P.S after the end, it didn't concern him.  
Izumi didn't think about dying, or about honor, or about immaterial ideas.  
That was a good thing, he always thought. Focus on what's in front of you. Focus on what you can touch, grab or take.  
Focus on what you want, and how to get it.

Some took up silver armor and steel swords because of the notion of honor, or duty, or glory. Izumi did it because he was good at it.  
Maybe it was an act of desperation, because he was good at precious little else, besides cutting things down. Cut down your enemies, cut down every threat. Cut those who aren't a danger, with words instead of steel. Cut cut cut cut cut until you can't keep cutting.

"It's a good thing you're pretty," said the witch, who was immune to Izumi's sharp words. Knights don't have poison on their swords; they are men of honor, in name at least. Men of honor don't need poison.  
Izumi's sword has no toxins, but his voice drips with them.  
The witch is immune to that too. It's a natural resistance. They're of the same sort, so Izumi's words can't hurt him.  
The witch has hair dark as night and a smile like a cat's. It's a predatory kind of grin, but also a rare one. He's kind of beautiful, made of black-and-white contrasts, of silky grace and velvet, predatory danger.  
"We're alike," said the witch, which Izumi had resisted for a while but had eventually accepted. There aren't many that are like us, his eyes said, eyes glittering red. Red as rubies, red as blood. There were a lot of red things to compare his eyes too. Izumi had a tendency to err on the side of poetic, and enjoyed describing things in the abstract.  
There were a lot of red things in the world, but the red of the witch's eyes is the most striking red in Izumi's memory.

It's honor to serve a king, but Izumi never cared for honor. What will a king get me, he wanted to know, money? Sure. But he'll get me death too, and more trouble than it's worth. No thanks.  
"It's unlikely you'd die," Arashi said once, airily. Arashi always spoke airily, which got on Izumi's nerves, but most things got on Izumi's nerves, so it wasn't really Arashi's fault that he got annoyed.  
"And you'd be rich as hell."  
"Rich as hell," Izumi parroted, scoffing, "go to hell." Arashi laughed that off.  
"Really, darling," Arashi's voice went as serious as it ever was, which wasn't very. On the surface, Arashi was doting, vain, a shimmering image of perfection that was ultimately viewed as shallow. But at the core of Arashi, there was thunder and the ferocity of a tiger. Condolences to those who couldn't see past the vanity.  
"Really, to be wanted by a king, that isn't something to just wave away!" A wink, roguish, an undercurrent of singsong to the word want. Izumi returned playfulness with a cold stare, which did not diminish Arashi's mood.  
"Most people don't get an opportunity like this, I wouldn't pass it by if I were you."  
Izumi and Arashi were alike, not in the way Izumi was like the witch. The witch was an isolated image of power, a dangerous outside holding an inside as untouchable as the stars. They were islands, surrounded by a sea made of poison, or infested with monsters, or plagued with storms.  
Terrifying, at first glance. Sad, once you thought about it.  
Too scary for pity, too miserable for terror.  
The way Izumi and Arashi were alike was in the exterior - though their interiors were more similar than they realized. Beautiful, who knew that power lay in loveliness just as much as it did in raw ability, or in weapons. Clever, and with the ambition to make use of that cleverness.  
We fight for what we want, they declared, and we want everything.  
In one way they differed: Izumi's toes touched the ground no matter how high he climbed. Arashi flew, a bird of prey or of paradise, and flew with eyes on the stars.

In the end, Izumi did not have much choice in the matter of kings and being wanted.  
It wasn't force, or a command. It was a game, of sorts.  
"Say," said the king, with eyes as green as spring leaves. He wasn't the most regal sort of royalty, but he was very pretty.  
Young, too. When Izumi pictured kings, he pictured old men, wise and battleworn, with scars and beards and flowing red capes.  
This king did not bear that sort of dignity. He was small, slim in the waist and in the shoulder, and had eyelashes so thick Izumi was certain he could easily pass for a girl, were he given a dress.  
Izumi remembers the old king, how he was wise and old and dependable, and how this new king is nothing of those things.  
Mostly, Izumi remembers the king before he became a king, when he was a prince who did not hold a kingdom on his shoulders.  
Izumi had only met the king once before he became a king, and neither of them had spoken a word to each other.  
They had been children, ten, or eleven maybe.  
The now-king then-prince had been a slip of a boy, red hair and green eyes under deep black coats that threatened to swallow the boy whole.  
In his arms, he held a sword that belonged to his father, the king. Before his father, the king, had died.  
He died for our sakes, was the hushed murmur that passed through the crowd of mourners. He died for his people.  
The little prince, who would be king in fourteen days, stared out at the sea of people, through the miserable gray downpour of rain, and did not cry and did not shake as he held his dead father's sword in hand.  
Across a distance that seemed impossibly wide, his green eyes met Izumi's. There was determination in those eyes, and something else that Izumi couldn't name. That unknowable something else seized him to his core.  
Thunder rumbled in the sky.  
Nearly ten years after that day, the young king looked at Izumi with eyes that seemed to dance. Izumi wondered, quietly, if the boy with eyes as fierce as the thunder was an illusion. Maybe he dreamed the whole thing.  
"Say we play a game," suggested the king, walking as he spoke. He never was still, this king.  
"A game?" Izumi echoed him, skeptically. Take me seriously, at least, he thought, annoyed. The king's bright orange hair bobs, enthusiastic.  
"The winner gets whatever he wants. What I want," he paused, as though what he wants is any surprise. "Is for you to follow me. Become my knight."  
Why do you want me? asked Izumi's mind. His mouth said nothing, only set itself into a sneer.  
"If you win, you can ask whatever of me! Money, land, whatever mortal desire you may have that I may grant, which isn't everything, but it's quite a lot."  
This is an inefficient recruit system, Izumi thought, than says it aloud. The king laughed, honestly, and very loudly.  
"No," he agreed, "but it is interesting."  
The rules of the game were easy, a lot easier than Izumi anticipated. He didn't say that, because he half thought that if he did, the rules of the game would change. The king was the sort of person who might do that. He was unpredictable, maybe impish.  
Izumi thought it was annoying.  
"The rules are: we fight. The winner wins, the loser loses. No killing, that'd be treason for you. For me, it'd be unpleasant. And for you, I suppose." He laughed again. Wah ha ha, the king laughed, without dignity or care.  
So annoying.  
The king's laughter ended, and he drew forth his blade. The steel caught the sunlight, shining and gliding off of the blade.  
Izumi mirrored him, and did his very best not to smile.  
He didn't succeed very well.  
You, thought Izumi, triumphantly, are a damn fool. You want to duel?  
Let's duel, your majesty.

They dueled. It was a dance at first. Izumi made the first move. The king followed. One, two, three. Clash, clang, the swipe of steel on steel.  
The king was not large, nor was he very strong, but he was fast. Sometimes, Izumi was annoyed by small and speedy sparring partners, who turned a duel into a chase.  
He was not annoyed as he followed the king, echoing dizzying quick steps and parrying moves that were blindingly brilliant and stunningly quick.  
Izumi expected this to be easy; he was surprised to find it wasn't.  
More than that, he was surprised to find he enjoyed it.  
The king, usually a flowing stream of noise, was silent as they fought, but his eyes laughed, and they burned.  
Spring green, Izumi thought of his eyes before. It was too mild, spring. Soft, and gentle, when he had eyes full of feeling. Full of fire.  
For one moment, as their blades clashed and the force of it reverberated up Izumi's arm, Izumi once again saw the boy of ten, standing strong in a storm.  
Maybe that was what made him lose, in the end. It was a mistake, a stupid blunder that try as he might, he never was able to resent making.  
Sometimes, later on, he'd wonder if he did it on purpose.  
"I win," declared the king, with chest heaving and face slick with sweat, sword against Izumi's throat. His orange hair had escaped its ponytail and framed his face, like a mane.  
You're a small and strange lion, Izumi thought from his place on the ground, dazed and exhausted and barely able to hear his own thoughts over the sound of his racing heart. But you are a lion, aren't you?  
A hand is outstretched.  
"So, will you follow me?" Izumi takes the hand.  
"I'll follow you."  
Leo smiles.

Izumi isn't the sort to dwell on could-have-beens. Focus on what's in front of you. Focus on what you can touch, and grab, and take.  
That's what Izumi tells himself to do, but there are times when he wonders.  
What he wonders most of all is: What if I won?  
If he had won, certainly his life would be different. Everything would be different, from that point on.  
Izumi doesn't ever wonder at the potential of this never-was life. He doesn't wonder about people he would have met, the life he would have lead.  
One duel decided Izumi's whole fate, and that was not what made Izumi wonder.  
What Izumi wondered was: What would I have asked for, if I had won?  
What did I want, more than anything in the world?  
There was nothing.

The witch followed Leo too. That was how Izumi met him in the first place.  
Unpleasant, was Izumi's first thought of him. The witch smiled too much and meant it, but darkly.  
Sometimes, Izumi wondered how the witch was convinced to follow Leo. Like him, the witch wasn't the sort to care much about loyalty to royalty.  
Perhaps it was a game that made the witch follow the strange king.  
Izumi never asked, and he rarely wondered.  
"Don't fall in love," warned the witch, but he smiled as he said it. Not encouragingly.  
I don't care what happens to you, said the smile.  
Izumi met the smile with a sneer.  
"What's love got to do with anything?" he asked. The witch shrugged, and fiddled with something magical. Izumi had no talent for magic, which was good, as he had no patience for it either, so whatever the witch was doing was an unimportant mystery to him.  
For a long time, the witch was just the witch. It was an impersonal thing to be called, and it felt like having a pet. Though pet implied tameness, and the witch was anything but tame. Like having a stray cat that becomes attached, not to you but to the benefit of you, or the benefit of the situation. You give it shelter, let it go on its way and don't meddle in the personal affairs of cats.  
In return, it kills the mice.  
It was three months, by approximation, that Izumi knew him as the witch, and in those three months the witch had given everyone new names.  
Izumi didn't know why he asked. Maybe following a stupid king made him soft, made him care about witches and their names.  
Maybe he was curious, or just tired of saying 'the witch'  
Izumi asked, when the witch was curled up in the corner of his room. He had a room in the tower.  
Towers mean death, said the witch, with eyes gleaming. He seemed delighted by the idea. Leo had laughed.  
The witch shifted, rolling onto his stomach, odd charms and bangles clattering as he moved. There was something raw, nearly obscene, about the decorations the witch wore. Profane, though they were nothing but carved wood and polished bone and rarely, rough gemstones rubbed to a sparkle.  
It felt wild, the jewelry, as untamable as their wearer. Unknowable.  
Izumi didn't like things he didn't understand, though he didn't much like going through the process of understanding.  
"You're nosy, you know that?" the witch drawled it out, lazy spiraling of his fingertips.  
From his neck hung three necklaces. Two of them were the same as everything else he wore, and one was just a pendant.  
Izumi stared at that pendant, transfixed for an indescribable reason.  
Then, the witch shifted, casting the pendant back into shadow, and the spell was broken. Izumi's gaze fixed itself on his face.  
"You can't know," said the witch, like he was bored. "Names are power, for my kind, so you can't have mine. Unless you have something to trade, but you don't have anything I want." The witch stretched, yawning. "Lame."  
If Izumi had anything the witch wanted, he wouldn't have cared enough to trade for a name.  
Names don't have power to knights, and if they do, their power means nothing against the might of a sword.  
"Well," Izumi said, irritated despite not wanting to trade. He didn't care all that much, but not being able to know bothered him. "I'm not going to call you witch anymore. It's confusing. What if there are other witches, and I have to call you all the same thing? It'd be annoying." The witch watched Izumi talk, smiling.  
"Call me whatever you like. I don't care."  
Izumi thought at first to name him Cat, because the witch had all the attitude and mannerism of a poorly behaved cat. But Cat was boring, and he suspected it'd make the witch laugh at him.  
"Kuma-kun," he decided, after a pause so long that the witch nearly dozed off. "That's what you'll be."  
"Fine by me," the witch shrugged, indifferent. His hands were pale and spidery, two fingers twirling the pendant between them.  
For a second, Izumi saw softness in his smile.

Kuma-kun spoke more when the king was in the room with him. Leo had a fascination for all things magic, and more understanding than Izumi would have expected.  
Most people shrunk in the presence of his highness, the king, but Kuma-kun grew. Hierarchy didn't seem to affect the black-haired witch boy, and he saw no need to fear or revere his king.  
Izumi liked watching them, though he didn't care much about magic, or about what they said.  
It's the illusion of camaraderie, he decided once.  
It wasn't any illusion that Izumi liked.  
One day, Leo slipped up.  
"R," he said, in a fit of excitement, and a vowel started to slip out after that escaped R, halted by Kuma-kun's hand to his mouth.  
Leo knew his real name, Izumi realized, and nearly felt hurt by it. Why should it matter? I don't care about his names, or about Leo knowing.  
He must have traded something for that name, something valuable. As king, Leo must have many, many things that a witch must want.  
Izumi shook his head, signaling an I don't care. Indifference, that's what Izumi excels at.  
The moment passed. Leo's sheepish expression gave way to explosive joy in a minute's time, and Izumi watched, and warned, and kept his king in check.  
"Idiot," he said, already familiar enough to insult the man who held the kingdom on his back.  
Leo laughed, and behind him, Kuma-kun made an immature face at their king.  
Maybe Izumi wasn't so good at indifference after all. There was nothing indifferent about the happiness blooming in his chest, like a warm flower.

Izumi thought he knew happiness. Izumi thought he knew a lot of things, and then Leo showed up and turned everything on its head. Leo was a harbinger of chaos, bringing change like setting fires and somehow making everyone the happier for it.  
When Izumi first took Leo's hand and said "I'll follow you," it was out of duty. You win, I lose. I follow you.  
When Izumi next holds that hand, months later, and says again "I will follow you," it was out of his heart.

In his life, Izumi saw Leo cry twice. Leo was a happy sort of person, who had music in his head and a smile always on his lips. Sadness, to Leo, was the weather. Rainclouds come and rainclouds go, but we carry on. Leo could think grandiose things like that, and see suffering as small, as a trivial hurdle to overcome.  
It wasn't a talent Izumi had, that was for certain.  
When hard times came, Leo's bright-burning happiness burned all the harder, smiling for everyone else until they retook their smiles and remembered that yes, the world carries on and yes, we continue.  
It's not the end until it's the end.  
So, when Izumi first sees Leo cry, it's like a knife.  
Like getting stabbed in the back, down to the betrayal, because Izumi had come to believe that Leo was immune to pain, and it hurt in a horrible way to realize he was wrong.  
It was pitiable crying, a child's sobs. Leo hadn't even cried when he was a child.  
Izumi felt utterly, entirely lost.  
He wanted to run away and shut his eyes and shut out the horrible retched crying of the boy he'd always thought to be above something like tears.  
"Hello," he said, loudly, instead of running. He wished he'd run. He wished he pretended he didn't see anything.  
Leo's eyes were rimmed with red, and looked all the greener for it.  
"Sena." His voice cracked. He seemed to be trying to get it under control, for Izumi's sake, or for his own.  
Izumi could think of nothing more to say, so he said nothing. He sat down, on Leo's bed, close, but not too close.  
Leo bridged the distance, without hesitation, burying his face into Izumi's chest and allowing sobs to wrack his body.  
If Izumi were someone else, someone like Arashi, he'd pet Leo's hair and murmur and mumble and say all kinds of gentle things. He'd soothe him until his crying stopped, and he'd hold him for a while after that.  
Izumi didn't know how to comfort. He felt awkward, trapped, and cold and hard as stone. He wondered what made Leo cry, when not even the death of a parent had made him break.  
Maybe he cried then, before, in secret. In his room, just like this. Back then, there was no Izumi to clumsily interrupt. Back then, would he have been totally alone?  
The image of a younger Leo, crying alone into a pillow the way he cried now into Izumi, made his heart ache something awful.  
It almost made him glad that he was there now, though at the same time he longed deeply to have never seen any of this at all.  
Leo's face nuzzled Izumi's chest and, hesitantly, Izumi pet his hair.  
It was the tiniest of gestures, stiff and awkward but all Izumi knew how to do. He liked to think that the sobs calmed down, after that.  
"I didn't expect you to beat me, that day," he said, wanting something, anything to talk about. Something that had nothing to do with Leo's tears. Leo sniffled, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.  
"Of course you didn't. That's why you said yes." It was the truth, even if it was an awkward one. "But I'm a genius, and I never lose." Pride shone there, bright arrogance underneath the film of tears.  
"Yeah, guess you are." In another life, Leo would have been born a bard, not a king, and he'd have freedom to make music whenever he pleased. Izumi knew of his genius pertaining to music, though he didn't think that that genius extended to swordplay.  
"What would you have asked me for, Sena?" Leo asked suddenly, "if you had won?"  
In the nearly-dark room, with his hair down and around his face, and expression no longer sad but still vulnerable, Leo looked like someone new. The ache that had been in Izumi's chest since he first found Leo like this changed, and it intensified. It was a new sort of hurt, something that felt between being warm and being sick, and Izumi didn't know if he hated it or loved it.  
"I don't know," he admitted, softly. Leo's eyes were gentle, infinitely understanding. It felt like being undressed, though it wasn't the slightest bit sensual or invasive.  
It was intimate, and for that reason it was uncomfortable, and for that reason it was good.  
"Probably would've just asked you to shut up." Leo's soft sincerity broke into a smile, and then a laugh.  
"Wahaha," he laughed. "That's a wish I don't think I could grant."  
Izumi never did find out what it was that made Leo cry that night. He tried not to think about it, though his own mind was often a traitor, and he found himself spending many nights afterward lying in bed. He remembered the sound of Leo's crying, like a frightened child, and it hurt just like hearing it for the first time.  
He didn't think about crying on the night it happened.  
When he fell asleep that night, with orange hair tangling with silver hair on the pillows and bodies just barely touching one another, Izumi thought only about being warm. Leo's hand touched his, pressing fingertips to fingertips and palm to palm. With eyes still shut, Izumi smiled.  
This is the thing I wanted most in the world, he realized, sleepily.  
When dawn broke and gentle golden sunlight flooded in through the wide windows of the king's bedroom, Izumi opened his eyes to the sight of Leo's smile.

"Don't fall in love," warned the witch, Kuma-kun, once. Izumi had brushed it off. Don't be stupid. Love has no place here.  
He was wrong. Love always happens.  
Izumi was clever, but slow on the subject of feelings. It took him a long time to realize he had fallen.  
By the time he realized he was falling, he had already nearly hit the ground.

"You're fucked," Kuma-kun said blithely. "So fucked." Izumi pinched the bridge of his nose, uncertain whether to blame his oncoming headache on his situation or on the odd concoction Kuma-kun was brewing.  
"It's for killing people," Kuma-kun said, the one time Izumi asked about his strange, bubbling creations. Kuma-kun always seemed most cheerful when discussing death. Most of the time, he was too drowsy for amusement.  
Izumi surveyed the potion dubiously, and wondered not for the first time exactly what benefit this strange witch was to Leo. It wasn't a malicious sort of wonder. It wasn't like he doubted the worth of this witch, or thought he didn't belong there.  
He liked having him around. The word friend was like an unspoken taboo between the two of them, but it was the word for what they were. It took them too long to admit that.  
"You don't have to tell me that," Izumi retorted, and decided to blame his headache on Kuma-kun, because he could. Kuma-kun laughed and dropped something highly suspicious looking into his cooking pot. Izumi wouldn't drink one of Kuma-kun's creations, not for all the money in the world.  
"Are you going to tell him?" Kuma-kun's fingers played with the pendant on his neck, the one that didn't match with the rest of him. Kuma-kun was beautiful, in a disorganized kind of way, dressed in a matter unlike anyone else in the castle.  
The pendant looked like something that belonged in the castle, with finely-crafted metalwork and carefully polished gemstones inlaid in a silver crescent moon.  
It was the only piece of jewelry Kuma-kun ever played with.  
"Of course not," Izumi scoffed. "He won't like me back. I'm not going to set myself up for rejection." One of Kuma-kun's eyebrows arched, delicately at him.  
"Secchan's a pessimist," Kuma-kun spoke like he knew a secret Izumi didn't. Izumi scowled at him.

Leo said "I love you" all the time. It was an easy sort of thing for him. It wasn't easy for Izumi.  
Izumi resented him for that easiness, but mostly he resented him for saying words he didn't mean.  
Of course Leo meant it. Leo didn't lie. Leo said everything he thought, and everything he felt, and Leo felt love for nearly everything.  
But Leo loved Izumi like he loved the sky, like he loved the cats that had taken up residence in the stable, like he loved Kuma-kun, like he loved his sister.  
Being loved in the wrong way hurt more than being hated. Izumi tried to hate Leo, then found he loved him too much to manage any hatred, so instead he hated Leo's I love yous.  
Sometimes he forgot to hate, and those were the worst times of all. "I love you, Sena," Leo said, with a grin as bright as sunbeams. Izumi closed his eyes and pretended that it was an I love you of being in love, and it hurt more than anything in the world.  
When he opened his eyes again and remembered to scowl and to hate, the brightness of Leo's smile didn't fade.  
That hurt too.

"If you win, you can ask whatever you want of me," said Leo, before their duel.  
What I want, Izumi thought, months later, is one of the few things you can't give to me.  
I want your love.  
He thought maybe, if he were given another chance for a wish granted, he would ask for a kiss.  
It wouldn't be love, it'd be nothing but a sad pretend to be romance, but Izumi could close his eyes and imagine he was being loved.  
He dreamed of it, once in a while. Of Leo, smiling a smile as bright as all his other smiles, only this was a smile just for Izumi. A secret smile. Just you and me.

"Love sucks," Kuma-kun declared wisely, whenever Izumi complained about his feelings. Kuma-kun didn't seem like the kind of guy who knew all too much about matters of the heart. "It's the worst." Izumi had agreed, too caught up in his own suffering to care about Kuma-kun's past experiences with romance, if they existed.  
Kuma-kun rarely left the castle during the day. He'd prowl around the corridors and fall asleep in cool, dusty corners and give any oblivious people passing by quite the fright, which amused him endlessly.  
"I hate the sun," he whined, on the rare occasion he went outside. Usually, Leo persuaded him. "It's hot and gross and I hate it."  
The sun was still out when Kuma-kun sat with Izumi and talked about love, and how it sucked. But the sun was dying, slowly, and the midsummer heat was bearable underneath the willow tree they had taken refuge under. Kuma-kun lay sprawled in the grass, surrounded by wild flowers.  
He looked oddly at home there, in the shade and with the flowers.  
At the time, Izumi didn't think much of those moments, talking about love and lying in the flowers. It was normal, unimportant.  
Later on, those moments became precious.  
Things are always more beautiful when they are gone.

"I used to be able to name all the stars," Leo murmured, in a voice as soft as Leo's voice ever got, "when I was a child. They made me learn all the stars, and the shapes they made, but I always wanted to make up my own!" Izumi knew only of the North Star, and Ursa Major, whose tail lead the way to the North Star. It was a useful star, which was why he knew it.  
Winter was coming, signaled by breezes that turned sharp and by the smell of cold that was impossible to describe. It wasn't yet truly cold though, and Izumi felt only a slight chill as they stood outside.  
"I still make up my own," confessed Leo, with a point of his finger. "That one's Kuma-kun."  
"Isn't that Ursa Minor?" Izumi asked, squinting at the place he thought Leo to be pointing at. The bear constellation.  
Fitting, for Kuma-kun.  
"Is it?" Leo's nose wrinkled. Then he shook his head and pointed at another patch of glimmering sky. "There's me." Izumi couldn't make out what Leo was pointing to. "And next to me, there's Sena."  
Me and you, together in the sky. It was a romantic idea, which made Izumi frown. His cheeks flooded with heat.  
"Sometimes I forget where the constellations I make are," Leo said, gazing up at the sky. He was infinitely beautiful, with the silver of the moon in his eyes and on the delicate circlet around his forehead.  
In a breath of a moment, Izumi fell in love as if for the first time.  
"So I make new ones." Leo laughed, eyes shutting and face crinkling and that was beautiful too. It hurt to look at him, so Izumi looked up, and tried to find Leo's made-up constellations. All he found was the North Star, and a thousand other scrambled stars with names he didn't know.  
"Sena," Leo said. The night around them was cool, but Leo's hand was warm as he took Izumi's hand. "Sena."  
"Yes?" Izumi felt lightheaded all of a sudden. Is this a dream? he wondered.  
Leo's eyes had never looked like this in any of Izumi's dreams.  
There were stars in those eyes, and the same fire Izumi had seen in a rainy funeral, years and years ago. The same fire he saw when they dueled together, not so long ago.  
Leo was always using words. Leo loved words, and he was good at them, though at times he'd forget about words.  
There were no words then when Leo's fingertips entwined with Izumi's, and no words as his lips brushed against Izumi's.  
No words.  
You love me, Izumi realized. All this time? Have I been breaking my heart needlessly over you?  
And then he stopped thinking, and threw all his doubts and all of his words to the wind and the stars and he kissed Leo.

"I love you, Sena," Leo said, and it was an I love you of being in love, and Izumi loved that too and returned words of love with smiles, and sometimes with kisses.  
It was a secret, which made it sound better than an affair. Knights and kings don't have love stories, not with each other, but they did.  
Our secret, Izumi thought, lying in the blankets with hands together. Well, ours and Kuma-kun's. It was difficult to keep anything a secret from Kuma-kun, who was more perceptive than any one person had the right to be.  
Izumi floundered when it cames to saying aloud what he felt inside, so he showed it instead.  
"I love you," Leo said.  
"I love you too," said Izumi's mouth, without any words, as he kissed the body of his king. "I love you, I love you, I love you." Leo's hands pulled in Izumi's hair and his voice trembled, beautifully, over murmured "I love you"s as Izumi showed him his love in the only way he could.  
You're so beautiful, Izumi thinks, and his heart swells with a hot happiness as Leo smiles at him with face red with fluster and lips kiss-bitten.  
I love you.

War came before wintertime did, and by the time winter had come, everyone was so caught up in the agony of battle that barely a soul stopped to care about the first snowfall.  
In war, Izumi realized the strength of Kuma-kun, who hurled dark glowing magic and enchanted the walls with curses.  
His potions, for killing, saw use among spies. They had another use, one that made Izumi sick when he first saw it.  
"It's painless," said Kuma-kun, voice utterly flat as he fed one of his odd-smelling death-concoctions to a soldier too injured for hope. He watched, emotionless, as the man died.  
His hand held the pendant around his neck.  
In war, Leo too showed himself for what he could be. The flickers of ferocity, the embers of fire that Izumi had seen burning in his eyes at funerals and during duels and under a blanket of stars turned into a bonfire. Leo was powerful and commanding and passionate, but there was a current of coolness to him always. Do what must be done. Sacrifice what must be lost. Never loose your head. Never let them see your weakness.  
It was Izumi only who saw the flipside of the ferocity. It was Izumi who saw Leo after battles, expression drawn and eyes distant.  
Izumi wanted to say something, wanted to offer to share Leo's burden.  
Words were Izumi's enemy, as much as the physical soldiers advancing on their kingdom were.  
So without words, Izumi turned to touch. A hand held when no one was looking. A kiss in dark corners. Bodies pressed together in the night.  
It was all Izumi could do, besides swing his sword with all his might and give his all into protecting his king.

It wasn't all that bad, at first. Izumi never doubted that they'd win, and Izumi never really mourned for the nameless who had been lost.  
He was safe, saved by his own skill or by luck, or some combination of both. More than that, Leo was safe.  
It wasn't until the day before Christmas that Izumi awoke to the reality of war.  
The spy had blonde hair and kind eyes, and no one ever thought that there would have been a monster hiding behind that smile.  
There was. Izumi hadn't been there, at the time. He didn't realize what was happening until he heard the clash of steel on steel. The sound of it was sharp, ringing through the hallway and piercing through Izumi's eardrum.  
Leo fought with both hands, swinging his sword with a horrible madness.  
He looked like a stranger to Izumi, despite looking entirely the same.  
He'd never before seen Leo wear a look of hatred.  
"You're good," commented the spy, neatly dodging a blow that held none of Leo's normal grace. "Very good. I expected you'd be dead by now." Leo growls, purely lion, and attacks again. The spy parries.  
"Of course, you would be dead by now if not for that witch. What is it about you that encourages self-sacrifice?" The gleam in the blue eyes of the spy suggested it was a joke.  
Izumi's blood ran cold.  
"Throne room," shouted Leo, gaze of unadulterated loathing never leaving the face of the blonde haired mystery man, whose smile felt like a mockery. Izumi ran.

The first time Izumi felt true happiness was on an ordinary day. Leo had been lost in one of his episodes of grandiose delusions, while Kuma-kun egged him on and Izumi scowled at the two of them and swore he hated them both.  
It was as he said that that he came to understand that he didn't hate either of them at all.  
We've become friends, he realized, as Leo poked at Kuma-kun and Kuma-kun made a face and tried not to laugh.  
I have friends.  
Izumi threw open the heavy double doors of the throne room, barely noticing the strain to his arms, and he saw red, and for the first time in his life, Izumi felt true fear.  
"Secchan," said Kuma-kun, still alive. For a moment, Izumi thought he had been too late, that Kuma-kun had slipped through his fingers and escaped to some place that Izumi couldn't drag him back from. Relief expels itself from Izumi in a heavy sigh.  
"The hell is going on?" His hands found the source of all the red; he covered it as best he could, clamping his hands desperately over the injury.  
"A spy," Kuma-kun's eyes fluttered shut, then back open. His eyebrows were drawn together, tightly, in pain, but he made no sounds. He was very very calm, for someone on death's door. Izumi hated that calm.  
Struggle, damnit, cry. Fight. Promise me you aren't going to leave me. Promise.  
Please.  
One of Kuma-kun's hands came to cover Izumi's own hands, gently. Izumi realized his hands were shaking. The other hand of Kuma-kun's was attached to the pendant. It looked shockingly silver against the hands streaked with blood.  
"Didn't realize what was happening till he tried to stab the king in the back. Made me mad," Ritsu scowled, almost petulantly. "Stopped him. Would've killed him, except I couldn't." His expression flickered. "Ah, guess I'm not as great as I thought." He looked only  
mildly disappointed. Izumi wondered if it was shock setting in.  
"I think I'm dying," said Kuma-kun, the first friend Izumi understood he had.  
"I think you're stupid," gritted out Izumi, pressing harder against the flow of blood.  
"It's okay," Kuma-kun said, with a smile. "I'm not afraid. Just like sleeping, right?" Kuma-kun is good at sleeping.  
Izumi snarled.  
"Shut up. You're not dying. You're so dramatic, you know that? It's so annoying." Kuma-kun smiled again, and did not look any more like he was fighting death.  
"Secchan," he said, softly, then touched Izumi's face with the hand that had been curled tightly around his necklace. Izumi felt hot blood on his skin, but pressed his face into Kuma-kun's touch all the same. "I want to tell you my name."  
"Why?" Izumi remembered the words from so very long ago, asking for a trade. "You said I have nothing you want."  
"You already gave me something," Kuma-kun said, mysteriously. He didn't explain.  
All he did was lean forward and whisper, like a child telling a secret, his name.  
"Ritsu," Izumi tried the name out. Ritsu, Kuma-kun, the witch, Izumi's friend, smiled.  
There was still a smile on his lips when he slipped away, into the dark nothing, where Izumi couldn't follow him.  
Izumi held his first friend, and he cried, and he cried until Leo came in with red blood on his clothing and fury in his eyes, fury that became something far worse when he saw the two of them, curled together on the floor in a puddle of blood.  
Izumi cried. Leo did not.  
Leo's eyes were empty, and that was worse than crying.

"How did you get him to follow you?" Izumi asked, with a voice like lead. It hurt to talk, but staying silent was worse.  
"We played a game," all of the brightness had faded from Leo's eyes. He looked older, and at the same time, infinitely younger. "I won."  
Izumi remembered taking Leo's hand, as Leo asked "will you follow me?"  
"So you asked him to serve you?" Leo's hair, free from its ponytail, fell in his eyes as he shook his head.  
"I asked for his name."

How then, did the witch come to follow the king? He chose to. After giving up his name, he said, "I'll tag along with you, for a while. I have nothing better to do."  
The king did not learn until a long time later that what Ritsu meant was "I have no one else."

He was alone, until the lion of a boy of a king stumbled upon him and saw a spark of interest. He hadn't always been alone, of course.  
But people leave, not always by choice.  
He was as alone as Izumi had been.  
That was what Izumi had given the witch, the thing he unwittingly traded for his name.  
Not being alone. Friendship.  
Happiness.

After that, the spark of passion that made Leo Leo never really returned. He won, that day, driving the blonde spy away even if he couldn't kill him, but he was defeated. In some irreparable way, Leo had been broken.  
Izumi didn't know what to do.  
The war had been terrible from the start, exhausting and terrifying and ferocious, but it had been a storm they had believed they just had to weather down. Hold fast, hold your head up high. Be strong, and we're certain to win.  
As a stone was placed under the willow tree, with no name upon it, because names are power, (even in death, they are power), Izumi thought that they had lost. There were no white flags, and Leo had yet to utter a single word of defeat, but defeat weighed down upon him.  
He looked at his king, ankle-deep in pure white snow and dressed all in somber black, and he remembered the child in mourning black.  
Back then, Leo stood resolute and unbroken.  
Now, his shoulders bent, and they shook when he thought no one was looking, and the lines of his face were drawn deep with sorrow.  
Who are you? Izumi wondered, desperately, the winter wind howling around them.  
Who are you, and where is my king?

The war dragged on, and so did the winter. The willow tree bent further under the weight of snow, and Izumi dared it to break. Don't you give up too, he told it, furiously. It was easy to be angry at a tree, and a lot harder to be angry at the one you love.  
The willow tree persevered. So did Leo, in a sense.  
"They call for peace," said a soldier from the front line, on a day when the snow showed signs of melting. The soldier was out of breath, face flushed with exertion. "They want to talk."  
"No way," snarled Izumi, though it wasn't his place to speak. No peace for murderers. No forgiveness for them.  
Izumi's fingernails bit marks into his palms as Leo said "I'll go."  
Who are you? You're not the king I swore I'd follow.  
You've given up.  
You let them break you.  
When Izumi uncurled his hands, he saw red crescent moon marks left by his fingernails.  
He thought of Ritsu, and he felt fury.

"Why do you like death so much?" Izumi had asked, scornful. The witch's smile had been playful; it turned strange. Looking back, it was sad.  
"Because I know it too well."  
Kuma-kun - Ritsu - survived by sleeping through the days and making light of everything that had hurt him most.  
Izumi could not fake a smile. 

Focus on what you want, focus on how to get it. How to touch it, grab it, take it.  
Izumi wanted to fight.  
"Let's duel, your majesty." Izumi issued the challenge in the throne room, the room he hated most of all.  
Leo spent most of his time there now, shut inside. Alone.  
Untouchable.  
Izumi resented him for that.  
"Duel?" Leo looked very nearly annoyed. "Over what?"  
"The same thing as before." Izumi swished his sword, impatiently. "The winner gets whatever he wants." Leo watched him, expression impossible to lead.  
"What do you want?" he asked, wearily, and Izumi suspected he already knew.  
"I want to fight. I want revenge. I want to take them all down and I don't want to give them peace. What do you want, your highness?" Leo's eyes closed. They stay closed for a very long moment.  
"I want to rest," he said, finally. "I want this to be done."  
It was finality. Leo gave up. Not officially, but he gave up to Izumi, which was worse than Leo giving up to a whole nation of people.  
It's over, Izumi realized. Everything's broken.  
Leo took up his sword, with none of the excitement or fervor he held the last time they dueled. It was like watching him do some menial chore.  
Izumi's glare darkened.  
Fine, he said. It's over.  
Let's duel.

The actual fight happened quickly. Izumi thought he was certain to win, as Leo seemed as frail and brittle as glass. If he pushed Leo over, Izumi could not be certain Leo would get back up,  
Of course, the last time they dueled, Izumi thought he was certain to win, and look at what happened there.  
Once more, Izumi was confident. Once more, Izumi was defeated.  
"It's over," Leo's voice was nearly cold. "I win."  
Izumi dropped his sword and batted away the cold steel of Leo's blade, trained at his neck.  
Last time, he had felt triumphant even as he had lost.  
This time, disappointnent sears a bitter burn into his soul.  
Leo did not extend a hand to Izumi.  
That was fine. Izumi would not have taken it.  
"We meet for peace at dawn," Leo told him, and then left. His sword clattered to the ground as he left, a sound that was drowned out by the deep thud of heavy wood double doors closing behind Leo.

Dawn came. Izumi didn't expect to be brought with Leo, but Leo asked for him.  
Is this a joke? Izumi wondered, cheeks burning with rage as he rode alongside Leo. Are you rubbing this in? You get your way, now you have to shove it in my face?  
I hate you, Izumi thought, spitefully. He almost convinced himself that he meant it.  
The enemy's flag bore an angel, white and blue. So very different, from the red lion of Leo's flag. The lion was emblazoned on Izumi's chest. It was engraved there, impossible to remove. Izumi wanted desperately to scratch the symbol away, to claw at it until his fingers bled.  
The emperor (not a king, emperor, and conqueror as well) did not greet them. It was a knight clad in angle blue and silver, with wings etched into his blade.  
He had dark hair and serious eyes, and he lead them inside, solemn and only speaking when he had to, which wasn't much.  
Izumi hated him.  
Izumi's hatred burned hot in his belly, driving him step-by-step into the fortress of the enemy.  
Is this what walking into hell is like? he wondered, as armored angels watched them pass.  
He wanted to spit at those angels, to be obscene in his hatred and show them that he hates them, and that there is no respect in that hate.  
You took away everything I had, he screamed at them in his head. Do you know that? Do you know?  
When the emperor greeted them, the screaming in his head stopped.  
The burning hatred did too, although it didn't go away. It morphed, transformed, into something new. A hatred stronger than anything he'd ever known.  
Kind blue eyes gazed at him, a smile creeping up his those lips.  
I know you, realized Izumi. 

"I want to rest," Leo said, before their duel. He wanted peace, and more than peace he wanted to give up.  
The fire that had been utterly killed in Leo burns again, revived by something more powerful than hatred.  
"You," Leo snarls, face a mask of fury. "You were the spy."  
The emperor smiled.  
"Yes," he admitted, openly. He watched them, a cat watching mice. "Shame about your witch. I liked him."  
When Izumi had sobbed on the throne room floor, he had felt like he was being torn apart. Like two large hands had grabbed hold of the sides of his soul and pulled.  
It felt like that now, but Izumi did not cry.  
Am I angry? I don't know.  
"I changed my mind," Leo declared, teeth bared. He wasn't talking to the emperor, Izumi realized, with a start.  
Leo's eyes were the eyes of the boy in the thunderstorm.  
"I don't want to give up," he told Izumi.  
Izumi was not happy, but the despair that had taken root in his soul since losing Kuma-kun began to burn away.  
It's not over yet.  
Izumi grinned, and drew his sword.  
"Will you follow me?" Leo asked, with his eyes on the emperor.  
"To the end," said Izumi.

He didn't think about dying. Some people do. Most people do.  
Even when he himself was dying, Izumi did not think about it. He thought about a lot of things, but death wasn't one of those.  
Beside him, Leo fell to his knees, and did not rise. There was blood in his hair and on his silver armor, but as he gazed up his face was calm, resolute. There were tears there too, tears he hadn't spilled when he lost his father or his friend.  
We are going to die here, killed by angels. A last-ditch effort of madmen. Hopeless, maybe, but brave.  
Izumi felt calm as he realized that, calmer than he'd ever felt in his life of turbulent feeling.  
When the sword slid through the gap in Izumi's armor, Izumi barely registered the pain. It was an awful pain, searing him until his mind went white.  
He stumbled, and fell, and lost his sword along the way. Too bad. He was already dying.  
His hand found Leo's hand, better to hold than any weapon, and he thought: I never told you I love you.

The last thing Izumi saw was not Leo, though he would have liked to have seen him.  
Izumi saw the snow, pure white and cold. It was melting, bleeding into green grass. Spring green. Buried in the green was a flower that bloomed resolutely despite the cold.  
These are the flowers under our willow tree, Izumi thought. I hope they bring us back there.  
The three of us, under the willow tree, together again.

The End.

 

Post script.

"I hate Mozart," says the boy with orange hair and music like magic. Outside, the sky is growing dark, but inside, the lights are all on. Izumi can see the boy easily, watch him complain and watch him play.  
Beside him, on the piano bench, is a boy with dark hair and lazy eyes that, when he turns to look at Izumi, are red as blood.  
Red. Izumi thinks of something, then forgets it before it becomes a concrete thought.  
"Hello," said the black haired boy, making the other one, the music-maker, turn away.  
"Oh, hello!" he said. Izumi smiled, though he couldn't tell you why.

The thought Izumi had, the one he lost before it was made, was one sentence.

_I've come home._

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be short and no one was supposed to die. fail and fail.
> 
> also, i was going to elaborate more on ritsu and.. all that.. but i couldnt squeeze it in w/o it being forced. sorry. 
> 
> thank you for bearing with me on this 8k ride of i dont fucking know. i dont know what this was. also i dont know why i constantly refused to use their names. idk man idk hope u enjoyed and didnt find me like, totally pretentious.


End file.
